I’ve heard it said that truffles taste like dirt and I can’t really disagree, though to me they also have a distinctive musky perfume that is vaguely erotic. These hotly coveted fungi develop underground, generally in close association with certain types of trees. There are hundreds of kinds, though the most prized are those of the genus Tuber, the ones referred to by my hero the 18th-century French gastronaut Brillat-Savarin as “the diamonds of the kitchen.” The white truffle, Alba Madonna, comes from the Piedmont region in northern Italy. It grows symbiotically with oak, hazel, poplar and beech trees, and fruits in autumn—as in right now. Their flesh is pale and creamy or brown with white marbling. Prices vary from year to year according to the harvest, which is rooted out by the famed truffle-hunting pigs (and dogs, and men). This year, I've seen them at Eataly in Manhattan listed at upwards of $3,000 a pound. A counter woman was passing a white truffle the size of a small potato to a man who held it up to his nose, inhaled deeply and nodded. "Somebody's going to have a good dinner," I said. "My-a wife-a," he answered in a thick Italian accent. Better than diamonds.
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Saw The Social Network last night. I think Fincher's best movie thus far. He really got out of his own way for a change, and Aaron Sorkin's screenplay will probably win the Oscar. It's a great portrait of tortured soul and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose stupefying mix of arrogant brilliance and crippling insecurity reminded me of half the people I encountered at Harvard, especially the genius-geeks whose shameless misogyny stemmed from never being able to get a date. The film is  less about the phenomenon of social networking than it is about the irony that the dude who creates it is a social outsider. Jesse Eisenberg gives a flawless performance, his face a motionless enigma that rarely jerks into a grimace we come to recognize as a smile. Movie night was preceded by yet another trip to Eataly, this time at the sub-prime hour of 4pm. The place was buzzing but  not overcrowded, and G and I slipped right into a couple of seats at the counter of Pesce. An appetizer of razor clams bathed in olive oil, parsley, garlic and hot pepper was delicious, a harbinger of things to come. Both G's whole branzino, infused with lemon and roasted on a thin crust of half-crispy-half-velvety potatoes, and my smoked black cod with a crackling skin and salad of watercress were fresh off the boat and perfectly executed. A quick trip to the gelato stand (chocolate for G, equally smooth and unctuous pear-vanilla sorbetto for me) and we were off to the races. I love a dose of the city on an unseasonably warm fall day.
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I've now made two trips to Eataly, New York City's new temple of Italian gastronomy, and although I haven't actually eaten anything on premises, I'm able to give you my initial impressions. On my first visit, shortly after it opened in late August, I muscled my way through the throngs of gaping tourists and irritated locals in what looked a lot like an Italian airport, barely able to check it all out before fleeing to the relative calm of 23rd Street. Porca miseria, I texted G. What a mob scene! And for what? A small, bedraggled-looking produce section (and alleged "produce butcher" Jennifer Rubell nowhere in sight); aisle after aisle of dried pasta; very pricey imported salume (culatello for $65 a pound!); walls cluttered with the kind of boxed biscotti and candies you find at most corner delis...well, you can see I was underwhelmed. (And the thought of the carbon footprint on much of this stuff gives me pause.) Still, I did get a glimpse of what looked like a very impressive selection of fresh pasta. Pat La Frieda's meats caught my eye, as did whole fresh duck, sweetbreads and tripe—not a common sight in most butcher shops. And the seafood counter, curated by the master David Pasternak, was flawless. La Verdura, a counter serving vegetable-based dishes and the only menu I eyeballed, seemed very promising. Now if all those people would just fuck off...
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